My Custom 2.7 feet closed system

[iantoh]

hi there hmkui,

i think perhaps the bristle worms is a possibility though there are reasons why i suspect the tube worms as being the cause. i'm really quite sure there is only one bristle worm in my tank as i quarantine all my rocks prior to addition, and as you can tell from the pics, my tank is quite sanitised, in that all the crabs and bistleworms are removed and all my copepods or amphipods or mysids and worms are those which i reintroduced into the tank from other reefers tanks when they gave some to me.

the reason why i think its tube worm spawning is because that red gonio is the only gonio i have that had numerous tubeworm tubes growing out of it. and i could see the radioles of the tubeworms out even as the gonio's tentacles were extended, which was why i was wondering if you noticed the brownish thin worm tubes on the skeleton when you handled the gonio. also, i distinctly saw the whitish secretions being spewed from the tubes of the tube worms that greatly resembled the spawning activity of my coco worm that has led to many small cocos in my tank. maybe its some other secretion and not sexual activity but from the tube worms i'm sure. still... it might really be some other issue, like the bacterial infection like you say, which is a very likely reason for gonios dying, or the bristle worms like you say.

also, thanks for the thought and offer of refunding me half the gonios price as thats really generous. thanks also for your nice help in having sold me the gonio in the first place ya. as for the west side reefers meeting, pls do sms me about it ya. i didnt know there was such a meeting and i would love to meet more fellow reefers.

cheers,

ian

[madmac]

...just looked through your tank thread and it looks great. just wanted to add that i used to have cyano problems like yours and it only abated after i changed to using distilled water for top ups. i buy DI by the carton at only $5 for 17.5L or 12x 1.5L bottles from Shing Siong supermarket. and i use phosguard to remove the existent PO4 from my tanks water. so perhaps you can try that too ya.

also, i add ca and alk by top up water everyday like you, but i find that not enough water evaporates for me to dose back the same amount of ca that is consumed each day, so now i'm having to solve the problem by adding calcium chloride solution along with kalk and alk. do you have the same problem? cause youve a full sps tank, and i only have two monti frags and some pocillopora and monti digita frags so my ca use should be lower than yours, but every day i dose half a litre of saturated kalk and one cap full of ca chloride and still from 500ppm it always drops down to 300+ppm after a week or so. how ah? short of getting a ca reactor.

cheers,

ian

Cyano, urgh! I'm not sure where they became so out of control... I shd hv just physically removed them off when I first noticed. It could be the tap water topup or the sea-water I buy, or jus be poor husbandry... pick one.

every nite, 1l of mixed kalk is dripped to replace evaporation, . Some sea-water is removed and mixed with baking soda, (for 2 nites), and on the third, I used seachem's reef-ca adv. It seems to have worked very well. I'm not replacing all the evaporated water as the salinity is always on the low side... some new NSW is added to maintain 1.25

I esp like the combination of calcium chloride with baking soda... when the seachem one is finished, I'll start using CaCl2. You're losing abt 30 ppm Ca/day, thats quite a lot... my tank is taking abt 20/day... you may want to verify your test kit. If thats working well, then jus do Ca, forget the kalk, as its harder to control the end-values using kalk.... while maintaining you alk supplements. I would rather go for smaller increases daily, than a weekly from 300 to 500.

[iantoh]

hi there madmac,

as for cyano, i think its primarily fueled by PO4. so its more likely the tap water than any husbandry issue la, as i think you must make alot of effort tending to the tank already. i kinda figured PO4 was the case for my tank's previous cyano ooutbreak because all my other parameters were ok other than for PO4, and having switched from tap water to distilled, and having used some phosguard to remove the already present PO4, theres far less cyano now. perhaps borrow a PO4 test kit and check out your PO4 levels?

i'm really interested to know more about your baking soda dosage. from what i know, baking soda increases both ph and alk slightly, right? i had a problem of ionic imbalance once when my ca was 550ppm but my kh refused to budge from 7dkh, and adding some baking soda mixed in water fixed it in a jiffy. but ive read so many different views about baking soda or washing soda being used for raising ph that i'm not quite sure what to think. do you remove some tank water for mixing with some baking soda, and then return it to the tank to maintain higher ph levels?

ive been wanting to raise my ph from 8 to nearer 8.3 for ages now, but ive not yet dared to try the washing soda thing. what do you recommend? i know it sounds stupid but its like the more i research regarding ph, and how carbon dioxide, bicarbonates and carbonates all affect ph, and that it generally stabilizes back to an original level even after adding buffer that i'm not sure what to do. pls do give me some advice on this if you can ya.

by the way, you also mentioned calcium chloride with baking soda. is that mixed together with make up water? and do you get your calcium chloride in powder form or in the commercial one part calcium liquids? presently, i'm dosing calc chloride in the form of seachem's reef complete calcium, and trying to push ca back up to 500ppm before resuming my kalk dosing. ive also set my six fan set back to running at 12volts instead of 7volts so as to get more evaporation and allow more top up with kalk. its getting a bit chilly in the tank though. haha.

cheers,

ian

[iantoh]

hi everyone, just a little update. i was planning on introducing a new tank member today, but alas, it was not to be. i went all the way to lck110 this afternoon to get my long anticipated black cap gramma, but when i got there, they told me it was sold out. sigh...

well.. till next shipment then. if anyone spots some black caps do drop me a note if you can ya. oh, and also, seeing as so many black caps from this and last months shipment were bought up, i was wondering if any black cap keepers could share some experience of their care with me, and perhaps show some photos? be really happy to see some lovely black cap photos whilst i wait for mine to realise. hahah

cheers,

ian

[XPeriment 626]

Lovely tank bro. Looks like a nice garden. Makes you wish you could walk around the sandbed

[iantoh]

hhahaha. thanks Xperiment!

[madmac]

Yeah, its PO4 alright. Thing is with BB tanks is there is hardly any nutrient sink... so it shows as it is, nothing to hide, any excess will be incorporated and shown quickly... a lot lower tolerance than SBs. I don't test PO4, its an exercise in futility

Using baking soda, I've experimented that 1 tsp(teaspoon) gives 1 dkh for 150l. Plain and simple, whats goes off is the pH aspect of the solution. You get slightly lower pH values as sodium bi-carb contains H20 and Co2 within... if you want to get exact pH of 8.3, it was advised that you bake 1 part of baking soda for 2.5hrs(i think, could be 3.5h) at 250ºC. This baked baking soda(also called washing soda) is then mixed with 6 equal parts of unbaked baking soda... The resultant power mixture will give a pH of 8.3.

i know it sounds stupid but its like the more i research regarding ph, and how carbon dioxide, bicarbonates and carbonates all affect ph, and that it generally stabilizes back to an original level even after adding buffer that i'm not sure what to do.

You're right too about that, thats why I don't use baked baking soda, just the plain jane food grade baking soda... tank pH will dominate, so conditions that hold your pH is far more impt than adding a solution that is 8.3, only to see it change shortly after. I guess ppl that do, use it because they don't want to 'shock' the tank with sudden addition of low ph solution.

Calcium chloride shd be use with water only and nvr mixed with baking soda...

When in the tank,

Calcium chloride + Sodium bicarbonate = calcium bicarbonate + sodium chloride

i don't use it yet... will start as soon at the Ca additive is finished... I not sure who sells them.. but think its readily available in powder form at most shops.

Ian I heard that its not necessary to bring you Ca to 500, they are impt but not that impt... I'm quite sure my Ca fluctuates somewhere btw 300 to 400 but seldom above 400. jus watch your pH, 8 is alright still, its the dKH... if you're constantly getting low pH, then only two things bring that abt, CO2 and dirt...

This is a web-site that I use, like dozing calculator, its good, you may want to bookmark it. : http://home.comcast.net/~jdieck1/chem_calc3.html

[iantoh]

hi there madmac,

thanks for your detailed and informative reply. i think i'll give the baking soda and washing soda mix thing a try. i actually have some supermarket bought washing soda and baking soda mixed already in 6:1 ratios in a bottle, since i found out about this diy ph buffer thing, but when it came down to using it, i didnt quite dare. i was like, aiyah, should ph ever drop below 8, say to 7.9 or something, then i give it a try, if not, i leave it. and as so far its always been a steady 8, and has remained so even when i tried raising it with store bought buffers, ive not been forced to yet. hahah.

pardon me for asking but i thought BB tanks were meant to reduce PO4 buildup to counteract the tendency of sandbed tanks to accumulate detritus and thereby return PO4 to the system? probably the tap water. phosphates dont cost the PUB anything i think, seeing as theyre so generous with that in our tap water.

you mentioned earlier that you remove some water from the tank and add baking soda to it then return that to the tank after two days. is that right? and thats primarily for raising your kh right? as in any ph effects are considered minimal? i was wondering then whether its ok for me to mix some kalk with tank water, mix it up, and dose that instead of distilled water because i'm not getting enough evaporation these days. will it cause any problems you think?

and oh, i agree that natural seawater's ca levels are usually nearer to 280ppm than 400ppm in most parts and theres no great need for 500ppm ca, but i also learnt through reading this article on "how corals use calcium" (http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/apr2002/chem.htm) that having elevated ca levels makes ca more readily available to the corals so i'm kinda aiming for that. actually, initially, it wasnt hard to maintain my ca levels at about 480-500ppm with a ph of 8 and kh of 8-10dkh, but now that coralline algaes growing everywhere and my monti and pocis are growing too, its really been dropping pretty fast. i think my best bet is to plan an upgrade to a ca reactor, but so ex! how to? hai. this is such an expensive hobby!

well, parting note: thanks for the calculator link. its really cool.

cheers,

ian

[iantoh]

by the way, other than black caps, does anyone also have experience with laboute's wrasse? seeing as i missed out on this shipment of black caps, i'm thinking about all the other fish i'd like to keep, and the laboutes wrasse is one of them. i havent seen them in person at lfs though, so would love to hear from anyone who has ya.

cheers,

ian

[iantoh]

hi everyone, just thought id link this: article:http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/sept2003/invert.htm

its a pretty good article about nerite snails that i came across today whilst trying to ID one of the snails in my tank. i think nerites are often overlooked in our hobby but may prove more useful as clean up crews than other snail species as their diet is predominantly comprised of diatoms and cyano, which are usually the two microalgaes that give us problems.

hope youll find it informative.

cheers,

ian

[iantoh]

hi all! heres a photo of one of the two pom pom crabs in my tank. the male (pictured here) lives within the branching goniopora, whilst the female is less often seen, and hides in the large rock piece to the right of my tank.

[iantoh]

hi all,

pls click on the pics to view the proper sized image ya, as these are thumbnails only.

[loster]

hey ian, ur words is lllllong but don't worry, i read it through. i trained myself to read fast cos me have ton of reading to read for my research and papers

anyway, nice pix and nice collection your have

i never succeed in keeping goniopora i tried twice andi stop trying already. don't want them to die in my tank again. at one momemt, they open so well and big, next moment, they don't open and u can see their base started to have the brown jally tried to safe it but still decided to go

there are 2 type of lps that i can never able to keep in my tank one is hammer and the other is goniopora

[iantoh]

hi there loster, thanks for the compliments, but my collection is really small at the moment. not much space la.

as for gonioporas, i think finding a healthy species from the outset is very important as they are easily damaged during transport, and because they are quite abundant and relatively cheap, they get thrown together in bags for shipment which sometimes damages their tissues, etc.

well, hope your tank is coming along great ya. and should you be fragging your sps, must chio ah!

cheers,

ian

[loster]

hey i have a big "purple" digit... i bought it when it is brown. very very brown. but it is fast grower compare with my orange one. now it started to colour up from the tip and some part... wait a while more ok. will surely frag for u

[iantoh]

hey there loster! kickass! i shall be looking forward to your frags ya!

haha.

thanks,

ian

[KTLK]

Hi Ian,nice & neat set-up u got there

[iantoh]

thanks KTLK!

[zephyros]

yos bros ... nice and neat tank u have there ... hope can view it

1 of this days

cheers

[wonder]

Very good thread, keep it up.

Reading your thread helps ppl like me to learn more things.

I personally like to see gonio with very gentle flow, will looks more lively.

It is one of my favourite but i fail once and discover gonio is very hard to please. Will get angry anytime when you get lazy to change water

[zephyros]

It is one of my favourite but i fail once and discover gonio is very hard to please. Will get angry anytime when you get lazy to change water

hmmm ... hijack abit .. thot goni's natural env are so-call "muddy" place.

they need high nutrient water to keep them alive for long period of time.

most captive goni start to die off after a yr - due to stravation ...

and i read somewhere that we shld stir the sandbed around the goni a

few times a week

hmm .. bros ian ... wanna comment ???

I was tempted to try goni ... maybe later ... coz my tank's bioload

is high ...

cheers

[iantoh]

hi there bro zephyros and wonder, pardon the longwinded post ya.

first up, thanks for your kind comments. didnt check my tank thread for a while now as i didnt think theyd be comments. hahah, so thanks.

as for the gonios, what follows is my personal experience, and i'm no expert, having only kept them for bout two years, so do take others' experiences and ideas into account too ya.

gonios:

i think that their care requirements vary largely according to their speciation and where they are collected from. for example, g.lobata., and stokesi can be found in high flow areas as well as low flow areas, so youll have to try out different flow configurations to see which best coaxes your colony to extend its tentacles. some colonies like dijoutensis and pandoraensis are sometimes found in reef areas where there is almost no flow- sort of like the deadspots of the reef, so flow is an important aspect.

like bro zephyros mentioned, most gonios collected for sale are from turbid reef areas, where the corals are sheltered from high flow and where there is usually a great abundance of phytoplankton and bacteria. tissues excised from the tentacles of wild colonies have shown a high gut tissue content of phyto, so it leads one to think they consume primarily phyto. the same study, i think by bob fenner, shows that of all the colonies examined, none showed zooplankton in its gut contents so for me that sorta confirms my experience that they dont consume foods above 50microns in size (though others report feedings on cyclopeeze/mysids). and research has also shown that with increased feeding, the photosynthetic activity of gonioporas increase, and with limited useful feedings, its photosynthetic rates decrease- and also, that gonios cannot meet their daily carbon budget purely by photosynthesis, so one cannot count on light alone to provide adequate nutrition- they must feed even to just survive.

in my case, i used to feed 40 to 50ml of cultured nannochloropsis pure strain phyto daily, but because of my low flow system, phosphates become a problem, so ive scaled down to just 5ml every three days now and ive still been able to observe minute growth on the gonios, especially the branching colony where tissue is growing back on previously damaged areas.. and my skimmate shows that the live phyto stays within the water column and multiplies itself so theres no need for very large feedings.

now, because ive lowered my phyto feedings, what ive also done is allow some diatoms to grow around the sandbed area where the gonios are, to provide supplemental food as diatoms are a large component of oceanic phyto, and in the aquarium, their spores will add to the available phyto.

recently, someone linked the discussion about tang poo being a good source of nutrition for gonios, and i think thats a great observation as tang poo will largely comprise half digested plant matter and attract bacterial growth to feed the gonios. (however, ive tried squirting my sailfins shit above my three separate gonio species and not witnessed any ingestion. ive also read of people actively feeding their gonios with mysid shrimps and cyclopeeze, but i simply beg to differ. ive tried that dozen of times with various foods, and though it appears that the gonios take the food, that is, wrap their tentacles around the foods offered, but the thing is, if you watch and observe a while, youll realise that its a contact stimulus response, and the tentacles are just closing up upon sensing contact, and dont actually ingest anything. when the tentacles finish retracting, youll see the food on top of the skeleton. thats in my experience though, and i'm sure they;ll be those with differing views. i recently read that youve to repeatedly feed gonios for them to get used to target feeding before they will feed so maybe thats something i oughto persist at, but for now, think i wont rock the boat as they seem to be doing good.

well, hope that helps with caring for your gonios. anyone with additional input pls do post ya.

last thing, i custom made this tank to house gonios, and had the side refugium because i wanted to use ecosystems miracle mud to grow chaeto and supplement iron which according to julian sprung is required by gonios (see http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/dec2002/invert.htm)

but the thing is, i havent dared to put in the miracle mud as other than iron, it also has high silicate and phosphate contents, and everything seems to be going great so im not really for want of rocking the boat.

cheers all,

ian

[iantoh]

hi everyone!

i tore down my tank today. a little sad, but also excited, as i'm getting a new system. the new system will have a display tank of the same size, with the slanted edges at the front, but without the side refugium as it will come with a proper overflow at the back, to a sump that will hold one and a half times the water volume of my main tank.

and my gf is going to chip in for a beckett for my birthday! woohoo!

hopefully everything goes well with the new tank as theres alot of plumbing to be done. if anyone has some 1000L/Hr pumps for sale, pls pm me about them ya as i will need two for my return.

cheers everyone!

ian

ps: all those who i promised xenia frags to, pls pm me to arrange collection.

[Travy]

wow... Good gf u have there. Mine went crazy every tme i buy something for my tank... Imagine when i bought my beckett. The only thing she likes?

Boxfishes... But when ask her to chip in and buy one for my tank... i kanna scolded. "Your hobby ok!"

[nicholas_yeo]

Hi Ian

Your tank thread is really interesting. Good information on keeping gonio. Mine tank is directly the opposite of yours and it was very high flow rate. I use to thot low flow rate is really difficult to maintain but your tank looks great.

Can u share on your wkly supplement routine (eg: trace, iodine etc)? I will be interested to know how u keep your parameter check yet Gonio is still so lively.

regards..nick